CSA Cemetery

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Historical Marker #182 commemorates the CSA Cemetery in Pewee Valley, which was established in May 1871.

In 1904 the Directors of the Pewee Valley Cemetery assigned 11,275 square feet of space to the Commonwealth of Kentucky for use by the Kentucky Confederate Home. The residents of the Home were CSA veterans who lived there from 1902-1934. The Home was located northwest of the cemetery, where a remnant of the walkway remains. Marked by a zinc obelisk inscribed with “In Memory of Our Confederate Dead” financed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the CSA Cemetery eventually became the final resting place for 313 of the Home’s residents. It is one of 61 Kentucky Civil War monuments on the National Register of Historic Places and is the state’s only official burying ground for Confederate veterans. A 25-foot flagpole was added by the state in 1957, when the cemetery was rededicated.

At the entrance of the cemetery is the Kentucky Confederate Home sign that once spanned two stone pillars, marking the main walkway to the Home. It was placed at the entrance of the Pewee Valley Cemetery in the early 1960s. A special addition to the CSA Cemetery was the planting of the Zollie Tree in 1985. Propagated and planted by horticulturist Theodore Klein, it was a sprout from the large oak beneath which Confederate General Felix K. Zollicoffer was killed at Mill Springs, Kentucky, on January 19, 1862 during the Civil War.

In addition to the CSA Cemetery, the Pewee Valley Cemetery contains two more sections, one designated for the black population and one designated for the white population of Pewee Valley and the surrounding area. The cemetery contains a total of 14 acres. Many Confederate Memorial Day observances have been held at the site.